


What I talk about when I talk about running (away)

by fictionalaspect



Category: Bandom, Panic At The Disco, The Like, Young Veins
Genre: F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-17
Updated: 2010-08-17
Packaged: 2017-10-11 03:24:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/107810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictionalaspect/pseuds/fictionalaspect
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The guy who picked him up was named Spencer. He had a three-day beard and he was, Brendon suspected, a tiny bit south of fully rational. He drove a nice car, and didn't look like an axe murderer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What I talk about when I talk about running (away)

**Author's Note:**

> A story in six pictures and 1200 words.

  


The thing Brendon likes most about where he lives, is the trees.

The thing he likes least is, well. Everything.

Trees and space and fresh air can't make up for the subliminal feeling of squeezing in his chest, the sense of movement and sound constricted by everything he's supposed to be. He tells himself he's happy, that this is where he's supposed to be, that the housing deposit is paid for and the scholarship came through, and yet--there's still that sense of disjunction, of something fundamentally unsettled. Brendon's an echo in so much space, up here.

Sometimes it's overwhelming, and sometimes he thinks _fuck it_, but he doesn't run away until the day he does.

  


And it's raining, of course it's raining. Brendon has his wallet and his favorite jacket and nothing else, because it had been a split second decision, a moment where the lines had been suddenly, starkly clear. He'd said goodbye to his brand-new roommate--

("Heading out to the cafeteria, dude?"

"Oh. Oh, yeah, totally, you know. Food. It's pretty awesome."

"Avoid the lasagna."

"I--right. Okay. Will do."

"Just saying, man. It moves.")

He'd left his dorm room and walked past the cafeteria--past the Ivy League halls, standing empty and open--past the green fields and the carefully manicured trees--past the edges of campus, sorority houses full of laughter, kegs standing ready in the back yard--

\--and onto the road, and it had started to rain.

He'd kept walking.

  


The guy who picked him up was named Spencer. He had a three-day beard and he was, Brendon suspected, a tiny bit south of fully rational. He drove a nice car, and didn't look like an axe murderer.

He was driving out to the Mojave desert.

"Really?" Brendon said, ignoring the tiny leaping _something_ in his chest, the pounding of his heart that was suddenly beating in time to Spencer's words. Rain dripped down underneath his glasses. "That's a long drive."

"Picking up some friends on the way," Spencer said. "You want to come? Split the gas, I'll pay for food."

"I don't--I could be a psycho." Brendon said. "You really want to do that?"

"You only have to refrain from killing me until New York City," Spencer said seriously. "Then I'll have backup. Get in, man. We've got a drive to make, places to be. We can hit New York in three hours, if we're lucky."

This is, Brendon realizes, the stupidest thing he's ever considered. He doesn't even have a change of clothing. Or fuck, his _phone._

"Hell," Brendon says. "Hell, man. I'm in."

  


Spencer's friends are two girls named Z and Tennessee, and Brendon would be suspicious if the strange psudonyms didn't fit them so well. Tennessee was long and lanky, blond hair spilling haphazardly down her back, and she claimed the front seat immediately.

("On account of my longer legs," she said. "Spencer and I, we're cursed. It's a terrible thing.")

Z was small and fierce, with a wide, blinding smile when she chose to use it. She tapped her fingers incessantly when she didn't like the music, and then settled down into a languid stupor when she did, an expression of blissful happiness on her face.

"I hate driving," she told Brendon. "Not enough room to move, but it's the best way, you know? Flying's not the same. You just miss the whole journey, the whole--you never meet anyone up in the sky."

"You don't," Brendon said. He was wearing a pair of Spencer's shorts and a thin white T-shirt he'd bought at a Target somewhere in Oklahoma. They'd been on the road for two weeks, and every mile away from campus made his chest breathe easier. "I wouldn't have met you."

"You wouldn't," Z said, and gave him a look, as though she wasn't sure that Brendon appreciated the great honor it was, to sit beside her and watch the wind fan through her hair. Her eyes were kind, though, and she tapped her fingers on his knee when the back of Tennessee's seat seemed to bore her.

"Tell me a secret," Z said suddenly. "All of you in this car, right now. Something you've never told anyone."

Tennessee let lose a peel of laughter, and turned around to face them. "You know all my secrets," she said, grinning widely. "I let you read my diary, Z."

"You were twelve," Z said dismissively. "You've been tucking them away to save, I know you. Something new, Tenn."

"I think," Spencer said slowly. "I think I'm driving out to this festival because I hope my best friend will be there. Not the only reason, but. I haven't seen him in years."

"What's his name?" Z said, smiling a little, soft.

"Ryan," Spencer said. "Your turn, Z."

"I'm in love," Z said. "Your turn, Brendon."

"I'm not," Brendon said, honestly. "I've never been."

"Oh, but that just makes it better," Tennessee said. She was waving her hand out the window, following the air currents in an up-and-down motion. "It will hit you like a fright train, when it happens."

"That sounds scary," Brendon said.

"The best kind of terrifying," Z said, with a smile. "Tenn, tenn. You never told."

"I'm not in love," Tennessee says, with a careful smile. She's looking at the center line, not giving an inch. "But I could be."

  


The desert is alive in the night-time. Fireworks sparkle in the air, and bonfires rise to meet the moon. Brendon's barefoot, being tugged along by Tennessee and Z, out to an open space in the mess of people. Brendon's tired and exhilarated. He feels like bursting. He needs a guitar. There's music at his finger-tips, but right now all he has is a glow-in-the-dark hula hoop and the hands of two strange, wonderful girls. There's a stage to their left, haphazardly built with planks and desert brush. A tiny girl with striped hair sings from the stage, acoustic music rising and falling with her voice.

"Here," Z says, firmly. "Right here."

"Okay," Brendon says, and hands the hula-hoops over. "Now what?"

"Now we dance," Z says. "Brendon, Bren. Didn't you see this coming? This is what we came here for. Music in the starlight."

"And love," Tennessee adds. Her hand, Brendon notices, is still linked with Z's tiny one. "And friends. But mostly magic, my friend. The kind you only find when you make it yourself."

"Magic," Brendon says. "Magic. Okay." He doesn't need a mirror to know he's smiling. "So we dance?"

"We dance," a familiar voice says, from behind his shoulder. Brendon turns to see Spencer, perhaps a little dirtier than when he'd left them that morning. There's tall, thin young man with him. They're standing close enough that their fingers brush. "Seize the moment, dude. Carpe noctum, all that shit."

The beat from the music runs through the ground, all the way up into Brendon's legs and hips. Feet pound the earth; the faces Brendon can see are smudged with mud and wide open with laughter.

"Let's go," Brendon says, and follows the girls into the crowd.

The moon is a circular disc against the horizon, finally whole.


End file.
